Preparing to Pitch

In the midst of hosting out-of-state relatives (which I’m super excited about), I’m working on the pitch for my young adult fantasy novel. After all, I’ve paid to pitch it to an agent and an editor next week at Willamette Writer’s Conference.

I don’t want to repeat any of those posts, so please click over and read them if you want more information.

Now that I’m experienced in the fine art of pitching a novel (because one successfully pitched novel does an expert make *rolls eyes*), I wanted to share my journey toward preparing this year’s pitch.

Emotionally

Image from www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

Last year, I was an emotional wreck for weeks before the conference. I pored over my logline and rewrote my elevator pitch dozens of times.

I practiced the pitch endlessly in front of the mirror (not my favorite, looking at myself is distracting – Is that a wrinkle line above my lips?) until I’m sure I was mumbling my pitch in my sleep.

Am I nervous? Sure. A little bit of nerves makes a performance better. Do I feel like sprinting in the opposite direction of the conference? Not in the least.

The takeaway: pitch. The only way to get better at verbal pitches is to practice. On real agents. With real stakes.

To make a perfect pitch, you have to make a myriad of imperfect pitches.

Mentally

It’s important to familiarize yourself with the details you want to share.

This is what I needed to know about my novel:

Title: Doomsday Dragons

Genre: YA Fantasy

Main character(s): A snarky Chinese teen who sees visions of the future and a geeky surfer dude from Hawaii with the ability to control animals with telepathy

Conflict: She must find him so he can awaken a sleeping dragon who can join with the dragon she first meets to defeat the vitriolic dragon bent on destroying everything in sight

Antagonist: mainly a fire-breathing dragon whose emerging from his prison in the Earth’s core

Stakes: The Earth will be ravaged by the red dragon (but there are also personal stakes involved – which might be better to include in the log-line.

This is the information I used to create my winning log-line and streamline the summary included on the One Sheet.

Review a written copy of your 100-word pitch. I like to rewrite it several times, so it feels natural when I present it.

Another important thing to remember is that the person I’m presenting to is INTERESTED. He or she wants to find good storytellers and help them down the publishing track. That’s their job. How can I show them I would make their job easier?

Love your story. Be able to describe what it resembles (the sarcasm of Rick Riordan combined with the diverse characters of Suzanne Collins).

The takeaway: if you know your story inside and out and believe it has value for the intended audience, you can make the agent believe in it, too.

How about you? How do you prepare for a career-changing interview?

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Sharon Lee spent her youth talking to animals, who never replied, until she escaped to Narnia, where animals did talk back. The magical portal of reading made her a dream weaver. Now, she invites fantasy addicts and dreamers to time travel into immortal, mystical realms.